Cambridgeshire Chamber of Commerce has set out a clear package of measures it wants the Chancellor to deliver in the Autumn Budget, aimed at giving businesses across Cambridgeshire and Peterborough greater confidence to invest, recruit, grow and trade.
The Chamber’s Autumn Budget 2026 submission brings together the priorities businesses across the region have consistently raised: infrastructure that keeps pace with growth, a skills system driven by employer need, lower barriers to employing people and investing, and an environment in which entrepreneurs and growing companies are encouraged to build their future in the UK.
Cambridgeshire and Peterborough occupies a particularly important position in the national economy, connecting the science and innovation strengths of the Oxford-Cambridge corridor with the manufacturing, energy, agri-food, logistics and international trading strengths of the wider East of England.
The Chamber has pressed the Chancellor to act in six key areas:
- Unlock Ely-Haughley and improve strategic connectivity, progressing the rail infrastructure needed to increase passenger and freight capacity and better connect Cambridge, Peterborough, the East of England and national markets.
- Put employers at the heart of skills investment, including long-term funding for Local Skills Improvement Plans, a more flexible Growth and Skills Levy, better access for SMEs and targeted support for strategically important higher-level apprenticeships.
- Turn devolution into investment, giving Cambridgeshire and Peterborough greater long-term funding certainty, more flexible financing powers and the ability to reinvest more of the economic value created locally.
- Fund the infrastructure growth depends on, particularly water, wastewater, electricity and grid capacity, alongside the planning and technical capability needed to get investable projects moving.
- Reduce the cost of employing people and doing business, including no further increases in employer National Insurance during this Parliament, action on business energy costs, reform of business rates and a stable multi-year business tax roadmap.
- Back entrepreneurs, scale-ups and international growth, protecting incentives for investment and reinvestment, helping innovative firms access public procurement and providing consistent, locally delivered support to help more SMEs export.
Charlotte Horobin, Chief Executive of Cambridgeshire Chamber of Commerce said:
“Businesses across Cambridgeshire and Peterborough are ambitious. They want to recruit, invest, innovate, expand and trade. What they need from the Autumn Budget is an environment that gives them the confidence and capacity to do it.
“Our message to the Chancellor is straightforward: back business, unlock investment and deliver growth.
“That means dealing with the real constraints companies face. It means unlocking Ely and our strategic transport connections, ensuring businesses can access the skills they need, providing the water and power infrastructure required for growth, and tackling the rising cost of employment, energy and business premises.
“It also means recognising that this region has enormous national potential. Cambridgeshire sits at the meeting point of world-leading science and innovation and the industrial and international trading economy of the East of England. If Government removes the barriers to investment here, the benefits will extend far beyond our county boundaries.
“We are not asking Government to create growth on behalf of business. We are asking it to make targeted decisions that allow businesses themselves to invest, employ, innovate, scale and export.”
The Chamber is also calling for policy to recognise the needs of businesses at every stage of growth, from SMEs facing the immediate cost of employment and energy, through to high-growth companies seeking capital, skilled people and customers as they scale.
The submission argues that relatively focused public investment and tax reform can unlock substantially greater private-sector activity, rather than Government attempting to generate growth through public spending alone.
The Chamber has made clear that it stands ready to work with HM Treasury, Government departments, the Cambridgeshire and Peterborough Combined Authority, the Greater Cambridge Development Corporation, local authorities, colleges, universities and businesses to turn these priorities into delivery.
Back business. Unlock investment. Deliver growth.